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Environment

Coal-ash spill threatens river in North Carolina

Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoCHUCK BURTON | ASSOCIATED PRESSDemonstrators march outside Duke Energy headquarters in Charlotte, N.C., to protest a spill of about 82,000 tons of coal ash into the Dan River.

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By Colleen JenkinsREUTERS • Friday February 7, 2014 8:01 AM

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — As much as 82,000 tons of ash has spilled into a river after a pipe break
at a retired coal plant in North Carolina, but environmental officials said yesterday that
preliminary water-quality tests showed no violations of state standards.

Although no immediate threat to drinking water in nearby Virginia towns was reported, officials
said concerns remain about how the spill could affect the Dan River long term.

“The Dan River does not have a clean bill of health,” said Tom Reeder, director of the North
Carolina Division of Water Resources.

The ash release was discovered on Sunday at a Duke Energy power plant in Eden. The company said
the broken storm-water pipe under a 27-acre ash pond released enough coal ash to fill 20 to 32
Olympic-size swimming pools.

The state’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources said it will continue to evaluate
whether the water is safe in the river, where fishing and canoeing are popular activities.

Hundreds of workers have been at the site this week trying to stop the leak and seal the broken
pipe, Duke Energy said. The spill is visible several miles downstream. A spokeswoman said there is
no indication as to when it will be fully contained.

Duke Energy, the country’s largest provider of electricity, retired the Eden coal plant in 2012.
No coal ash has been produced at the site since then.

It was built in the 1940s, and the storm-water pipe was in place before the ash basin was
extended over it, Musgrave said. The ash pond stored the waste produced by burning coal.

The Waterkeeper Alliance, an international advocacy group, said the spill is “the latest in a
series of wake-up calls” about public health and environmental threats from leaking ash ponds.